Free File Compression Software

WinRAR, RAR - Using WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd when it comes to compression by consistently making smaller archives than the competition, saving disk space and transmission costs. WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives. WinRAR offers a graphic interactive interface utilizing mouse and menus as well as the command line interface.
Download           OS: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP | DOS | OS/2 | Linux | FreeBSD | Pocket PC | MacOS X           

Zip&Go - Try this free and state-of-the-art compression utility. This is the easiest and most effective way to work with ZIP files both for experts and amateurs. It is hard to believe, but by using Zip&Go you can do all your Zip work with one single mouse click.
Download           OS: Windows 95/98/Me/2000            Size: 1.9Mb

KArchiver - A little archiver for KDE, to easily manage & modify .tar, .gz, .zip files, throught wizards (compile, make & install under a KDE interface !!). The goal of karchiver is to be very easy to use (icons, contextual menus, wizards...), but powerful (convert a .tar.gz to a .zip, apply patches) Now karchiver is integrated in Konqueror: view, extract or create an archive just with a mouse click, without leaving Konqueror. Karchiver can also be used with the command line: create and extract almost any kind of archive, without dealing with compressor's specific options (see karchiver --help).
Download           OS: Linux, KDE            Size: 1.9Mb

ExtractNow - This freeware allows you to extract more than one archived file at a time, with one click of a button. Makes extracting files easier and quicker. Supports ACE, ZIP, & RAR archives."
Download           OS: Windows 95/98            Size: 608Kb

UltimateZip - This free supports 16 Archivetypes, e.g. Ace, Arj, Cab, Lha, Rar, Tar, GZip, Zip and so on. It has many features like Zip and Mail,shell integration, full drag and drop support, selfextracting Zip archives, multi-disk spanning, CheckOut, Install, Ziprepair and Favorites. Also allows you to encrypt archives and files.
Download           OS: Windows 95/98/NT/2000            Size: 2.1Mb

bzip2 - is a freely available, patent free (see below), high-quality data compressor. It typically compresses files to within 10% to 15% of the best available techniques (the PPM family of statistical compressors), whilst being around twice as fast at compression and six times faster at decompression.
Download           OS: Windows, Linux

Quick Zip - Zip and unzip compressed archives with Quick Zip. Here are some of its many features: Build-in support to 19 types (or 33 extension) of archives and encoding formats. Providing full integration to the shell, including archive icon, which associate different archive with different icon, context menu, Tool tips, drag and drop, cut and paste. Folder list, which show the directory structure of files, new function: version control, when toggle on, add new file will add the current date time in path, which enable user to store and pick different version of files in same archive. Hot edit functions, and beside hot edit, user will be asked to update if they run a file and make modification on it. Basic features include extract, add, sfx, run, install, checkout, virus scanning, spanning, multi-extract, batch zip, file list export to txt, htm and pdf files, repairing zips, internal mail client. Other features include script support, archiver finder/converter, and internal viewer. Low memory consumption: Quick zip won't load the component until require to use, startup memory usage less than 4mb.
Download           OS: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000            Size: 2.93Mb

PC Utilities Sections: AntiVirus Software, Backup Utilities, Disk Management Utilities, File Compression Software, File Managers, Security, Encryption Software